Fixed-length Binary Strings

Host Variable Formats

OpenESQL

03 bin-field1      PIC X(5).
03 bin-field2      SQL TYPE IS BINARY(200).

• SQL BINARY, VARBINARY and IMAGE data are represented in COBOL as PIC X (n) fields.
• OpenESQL does not perform data conversion.
• When data is fetched from the database, if the host-variable field is smaller than the amount of data fetched, the data is truncated and the SQLWARN1 field in the SQLCA data structure is set to W. If the host-variable field is larger than the amount of data, the field is padded with null (x"00") bytes.
• Any of the following enable you to insert data into BINARY, VARBINARY or LONG-VARBINARY columns:
  • Use dynamic SQL statements
  • Compile your application with the ALLOWNULLCHAR directive
  • Use SQL TYPE host variables

• If you use PIC X host variables, compile your application with the ALLOWNULLCHAR directive to prevent the truncation of transferred data to or from the host variable if a null (x"00") is encountered.
• The bin-field2 format uses the BINARY SQL TYPE.

DB2 ECM

03 bin-field1      PIC X(5).

• Use CHAR FOR BIT DATA to represent BINARY.
• Use VARCHAR(n) FOR BIT DATA to represent VARBINARY.
• Use LONG VARCHAR FOR BIT DATA to represent LONG-VARBINARY.
• The IBM ODBC driver returns the BINARY, VARBINARY and LONG VARBINARY data types instead of the IBM equivalent.
• The IMAGE data type can be represented by BLOB.
• DB2 uses LOBs (Character Large Object, Binary Large Object or Graphical Large Object) to define very large columns (2 Gigabytes maximum). You can use static SQL with these data types.